Chapter 33

Introduction to Invertebrates (Chapter 33)

~95% of all animal species

~35 phyla
Most are aquatic/marine
o Big exception: arthropods have many land species
Animal form follows function!
o Focus on adaptations for:
Sensing
Locomotion
Capturing and digesting food
Distributing nutrients through body
Getting rid of metabolic waste
Water balance
O2/CO2 exchange
Defense
Reproduction
Phylum Porifera: the Sponges
o Closest group to earliest animals
o Aquatic, mostly marine
o Lack overall symmetry
Sessile as adults
o Lack true tissues
Digestion, gas exchange, waste removal at all cellular level
Learn parts of sponges and their functions!
Cell types often change roles

Body supported by hard spicules and protein fibers (spongin)

o Sponges are suspension feeders
Feed by passing water across sticky structures that catch tiny food bits
Choanocytes create currents and ingest food bits
Amoebocytes distribute nutrients
o Rproduction:
By fragmentation
Reproduce sexually: hermaphroditic
Flagellated larvae disperse, then settle
Basal Eumetazoans: Cnidaria

Phylum Cnidaria
o Radial symmetry and diploblastic
o Two body forms:
Sessile polyp
Planktonic/ free-swimming medusa
o Body is sac-like
2 tissue layers with gel (mesoglea) in between
Direct O2/CO2 exchange between cells and water
Know parts and functions!

With gastrovascular cavity

One opening (mouth/anus) digestive sac
Extracellular and intracellular digestion
Gastrovascular cavity distributes nutrients to entire body
o Aquatic sit and wait carnivores:
Catch prey with stinging tentacles with cnidocytes
Movement by contractile cells, coordinated by a simple net or nerve cells
o Reproduction sexual and/or by budding
Many cycle through polyp form and medusa form
Ex: Obelia
o Cnidarian Classes:
Hydrozoans:
Small solitary or colonial polyps
Scyphozoans
Jellies: medusa form (mostly)
Cubozoans:
Box-shaped medusa with eyes
Very toxic stings
Anthozoans:
Polyp form only
Sea anemones dont have skeleton
Corals secrete CaCO3 external skeleton
soft corals secreted protein-based external skeleton
Phylum Ctenophora
o comb jellies are radially symmetric and diploblastic
Transparent, medusa-like body
Moves by 8 comb-like plates of fused cilia
o Marine Sit and wait carnivores
Usually only 2 tentacles
Cells eject a sticky tread to capture prey

Lophotrochozoans

Phylum Platyhelminthes: flatworms

o Flat, triploblastic, acoelomate with bilateral symmetry
Mesoderm-derived muscle tissues
o Many organs:
Gastrovascular cavity with one opening
Highly branched to distribute nutrients
Eyespots; ganglia and ventral nerve cords
o But O2/CO2 exchange is at cell level

o Class Turbellaria
Planarians: free-living carnivores of scavengers
o Class Trematoda
Flukes: parasitic on animals
Schistosoma (blood flukes) cause schistosomiasis
Larvae present in water
Larva burrows into skin (itches)
Get into blood vessels liver
Larva metamorphize into worm stage
Lay eggs into intestines
o Class Cestoda
Parasitic tapeworms
Mostly in vertebrate intestines
No mouth or digestive system (absorptive)
Anterior scolex for attachment
Repeated reproductive segments (proglottids) fill up with eggs
Phylum Rotifera: rotifers
o Free-living, aquatic, microscopic size
o Rotating wheel of cilia, feeding on plankton

o Well-developed organ systems:

Alimentary canal (mouth-tube-anus):
Flow-thru food processing
Specialized digestive regions
Pseudocoelom acts as circulatory system
o Many species only reproduce by parthenogenesis
No males females produce eggs that develop into
Two Lophophorate Phyla
o Common features:
Aquatic, sessile suspension feeders, using a lophophore
U-shaped alimentary tract
No head
True coelom
o Phylum Ectoprocta
bryozoans or moss animals
Colonial, making mineralized skeletons

o Phylum Brachiopoda
brachiopods or lampshells
Marine, with 2 shells like bivalve mollusks
Very diverse in fossil record; few species today
Phylum Mollusca
o Common body plan
Learn parts and functions!

Muscular foot: locomotion, digging

Visceral mass: internal organs
Well-developed organ systems
Most have open circulatory system
Mantle
Covers visceral mass; makes shell (if present) and pearls!
Forms mantle cavity with gills or lungs (O2/CO2 exchange)
Many feed with radula
Scraping up food
Made of keratin and proteins
Most with separate sexes (except snails)
Most aquatic species with trochophore larvae
Snails are bisexual
o Class Polyplacophora: Chitons
8 dorsal plates form shell
No distinct head
Marine intertidal grazers
o Class Gastropoda gastropods
Largest class: land, freshwater, marine
Single shell or no shell; use radula to feed
Torsion moves mantle cavity over head-end
Torsion twisting of the whole body
Head and foot can retract into the mantle cavity
Some graze on plants, algae, bacteria
Some are predators
Many are land-adapted snails and slugs
Some are freshwater snails
Many are marine snails
Some are marine shell-less sea slugs and nudibranchs
o Class Bivalvia bivalves
2-part shell joined by hinge

No distinct head
Freshwater or marine: suspension feeders
Burrowing or sessile

Filter with gills; no radula

o Class Cephalopoda cephalopod

Active marine predators
Foot modified into grasping arms and tentacles
Beak-like jaws, often with poison
Well-developed eyes and brain (especially octopus)
Water-jet propulsion: excurrent siphon + mantle cavity
Protective ink and color changes
Ammonites: dominant and diverse shelled cephalopods during Mesozoic
Nautilus only living cephalopod with external shell
Can regulate the amount of gas in it
Squid and cuttlefish- reduced internal shell
Octopus no shell

Phylum Annelida: segmented worms

o Common features:
Segmentation = external and internal features are repeated
Reduced in leeches
Learn parts and functions!!
Soft body: segmented true coelom acts as hydrostatic skeleton
Well-developed organ systems
Closed circulatory system
Blood and tissue fluid are separate
Gas and nutrient exchange is across capillary beds

o Class Polychaeta polychaetes (many bristles)

Fleshy parapodia (feet on the side) and many bristles
All marine; trochophore larvae (similar to mollusk trochophore larvae)
bristleworms: active predators with jaws
fan-worms: sessile suspension-feeders
o Class Oligochaeta
With few bristles and no parapodia
Reduced head
Terrestrial or freshwater
Earthworms eat dirt; aerate soils
o Class Hirudinea leeches
Freshwater predators or blood-sucking parasites
No bristles
Suckers at both ends
Anti-coagulant
o First one was Hirudin

Some on land